Religious believers often tell me that atheism is my religion and even some atheists claim that they would not want religion eliminated because atheism is their identity and without religion to argue against they would lose that identity. Is atheism my religion and my identity? Wouldn’t I want to stop the elimination of religion to preserve my identity?

One of the most disturbing things about the Chapel Hill shooting is that the shooter, Craig Hicks, is an active atheist online. His Facebook page looks a lot like my Facebook page… minus the photo of the weight of his gun. We even have 77 Facebook friends in common.

One of the things I love about being a person of reason is that embracing reason over faith often encourages people to admit their mistakes and to change their position on various issues. For starters, most atheists once believed in a deity and have changed their position based on new information. All of science is based on the principle that we don’t have all the answers and that some of the answers we do have might not be completely correct or maybe totally wrong.

Look, I understand that in countries like China, Iraq, Egypt, or Israel, it is certainly possible and even probable that a Christian might be persecuted for his or her religious faith, but in America where 80% of the country is made up of Christians and roughly 95% of our government is made up of Christians (including the President), it is extremely unlikely. It is more likely that a Republican would be persecuted in Alabama than a Christian to be persecuted in the United States.

A while ago, I created a Facebook page specifically for Dangerous Talk, but it really didn’t take off the way I was hoping it would for a variety of reasons. For starters, I mainly posted there at 2am and as a result fewer people saw those posts on their feeds. Also, I had one other content creator and he was busy with his own stuff and didn’t post there that often either. But mainly I think the problem was that most people don’t know what Dangerous Talk is. The name alone could mean anything. It just isn’t descriptive enough to people outside of my blog.

When I started Dangerous Talk, I wanted it to be a community of people who could explore politically incorrect topics. I wanted it to be a community of geeks who weren’t afraid to dare to be different. I wanted it to be a community of Dangerous Talkers. Over the years, I have gotten away from that and I want to move it back in that direction.

Every year, Netroots Nation has a big conference in which they gather a bunch of progressive activists together for training and informational sessions. In the age of the internet, Netroots Nation has become kind of a big deal. This year, they are having a contest to decide who will get a free booth at the conference to promote a cause. American Atheists Inc. is one of the contestants.